What's new?: October 2010

Thursday, October 28, 2010

Tests warned of cement troubles before BP blowout

WASHINGTON – Tests performed before the deadly blowout of BP's oil well in the Gulf of Mexico should have raised doubts about the cement used to seal the well, but the company and its cementing contractor used it anyway, investigators with the president's oil spill commission said Thursday.
It's the first finding from the commission looking into the causes of the April 20 explosion that killed 11 workers and led to the largest offshore oil spill in U.S. history. And it appears to conflict with statements made by Halliburton Co., which has said its tests showed the cement mix was stable. The company instead has said BP's well design and operations were responsible for the disaster.
The cement mix's failure to prevent oil and gas from entering the well has been identified by BP and others as one of the causes of the accident.
BP and Halliburton decided to use a foam slurry created by injecting nitrogen into cement to secure the bottom of the well, a decision outside experts have criticized.
The panel said that of four tests done in February and April by Halliburton, only one — the last — showed the mix would hold. But the results of that single successful test were not shared with BP, and may not have reached Halliburton, before the cement was pumped, according to a letter sent to commissioners Thursday by chief investigative counsel Fred H. Bartlit Jr.
BP had in hand at the time of the blowout the results of only one of the tests — a February analysis sent to BP by Halliburton in a March 8 e-mail that indicated the cement could fail. The slurry tested in that case was a slightly different blend, and assumed a slightly different well design, but there is no indication that Halliburton flagged the problem for BP, or that BP had concerns, the letter said.
"Halliburton (and perhaps BP) should have considered redesigning the foam slurry before pumping it at the Macondo well," Bartlit wrote.
Independent tests conducted for the commission by Chevron on a nearly identical mixture were also released Thursday. The results concluded that the cement mix was unstable, raising questions about the validity of Halliburton's final test.
BP, as part of its internal investigation, also conducted independent tests that showed the cement mix was flawed, but its analysis was criticized by Halliburton, which said it was not the correct formula. BP's report also mentioned a cement test Halliburton performed in mid-April, but it appears BP obtained the results after the accident and considered its methods flawed.
By contrast, the commission obtained proprietary additives from Halliburton as well as a recipe to re-create the slurry that was used on the well. One and a half gallons of the actual mix used on the rig remain, but it is being held as evidence in criminal and civil investigations.
A spokeswoman for Halliburton said the company was reviewing the findings and would have a response later. BP said it would not have a comment on the panel's conclusions Thursday. alliburton shares dropped from near $34 to below $30 in New York trading in the half hour after the commission released its finding. The shares recovered a bit, and closed at $31.68, down $2.74, or 8 percent. BP shares rose from $40.38 to $41.28, then quickly reversed course and fell to $40.28. The shares finished trading with a gain of 49 cents at $40.59.
In testimony before the joint Coast Guard-Bureau of Ocean Energy Management investigative panel, Halliburton engineer Jesse Gagliano, when asked if he would pour the same cement again, said he would. Thomas Roth, a vice president at the company, said before a panel assembled by the National Academy of Engineering in September that Halliburton had used foam cement on 1,000 jobs, including 279 wells at 15,000 feet or deeper.
Roth faulted BP's well design and BP's decision not to run a test to confirm the cement had set properly. He also said Halliburton's cement could have been contaminated by the oil-based muds BP used to drill the well. Such contamination can form channels in the cement through which oil and gas can escape.
The independent investigators do not address other decisions that could have contributed to the cement's failure and the eventual blowout, such as BP's decision to use fewer centralizers than recommended by Halliburton. Centralizers make sure the well's piping is centered inside the well so the cement bonds correctly.
BP has also been criticized for not performing a cement bond long, a test that checks after the cement is pumped down whether it is secure. There are also questions about whether BP pumped down enough cement to seal off the bottom of the well, which was located more than three miles below sea level.
___
Associated Press writer Harry R. Weber in Atlanta contributed to this report.
source :http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_gulf_oil_spill_cement;_ylt=Ar0DTg8DnZQzxKAUfqm.TROs0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTNvbWVzN2IxBGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwMTAxMDI4L3VzX2d1bGZfb2lsX3NwaWxsX2NlbWVudARjY29kZQNtb3N0cG9wdWxhcgRjcG9zAzEEcG9zAzMEcHQDaG9tZV9jb2tlBHNlYwN5bl90b3Bfc3RvcnkEc2xrA2Z1bGxuYnNwc3Rvcg--

High exposure to BPA linked to low sperm count

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101028/ap_on_he_me/us_med_bisphenol_sperm;_ylt=Atpo8LV_bTmNdbkXcWS0yVDVJRIF;_ylu=X3oDMTJuY2Z1bmhuBGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwMTAxMDI4L3VzX21lZF9iaXNwaGVub2xfc3Blcm0EY3BvcwMxBHBvcwMyBHNlYwN5bl90b3Bfc3RvcnkEc2xrA2Z1bGxuYnNwc3Rvcg--

CHICAGO – Chinese factory workers exposed to high levels of the plastics chemical BPA had low sperm counts, according to the first human study to tie it to poor semen quality.
The study is the latest to raise health questions about bisphenol-A and comes two weeks after Canada published a final order adding the chemical to its list of toxic substances.
Whether the relatively low sperm counts and other signs of poor semen quality translate to reduced fertility is not known. Study author Dr. De-Kun Li, a scientist at the Kaiser Permanente Division of Research in Oakland, Calif., noted that even men with extremely low sperm counts can father children.
But Li said finding that BPA may affect sperm is troubling because it echoes studies in animals and follows his previous research in the same men that linked BPA exposure with sexual problems.
If BPA exposure can reduce sperm levels, "that can't be good" and means more study is needed to check for other harmful effects, Li said.
The study was published online Thursday in the journal Fertility and Sterility. The National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health funded the research.
Andrea Gore, a pharmacology and toxicology professor at the University of Texas who was not involved in the research, called it an important but preliminary study.
The results "are at least suggestive of the possibility that BPA may be one of the compounds that are causing some of these changes" in sperm, she said. But Gore said stronger evidence is needed to prove that BPA is indeed the culprit.
BPA is used to make resins and strengthen plastics and is found in many consumer products: hard plastic bottles, metal food container linings, dental sealants and eyeglasses. Most Americans' urine contains measurable levels of BPA.
Studies in animals have linked the chemical with reproductive problems and cancer. That's led to millions of dollars in new research in people.
Steven Hentges of the American Chemistry Council, an industry group, said the study in China "is of limited relevance" to U.S. consumers, who typically are exposed to very low BPA levels that pose no health threat.
The study involved 130 Chinese factory employees who worked directly with materials containing BPA and 88 workers who didn't handle it and whose exposure was similar to that of typical American men.
Low sperm counts were found in workers who had detectable levels of bisphenol-A in their urine. Poor sperm quality was two to four times more prevalent among these men than among workers whose urine showed no sign of BPA. The lowest sperm counts were in men with the highest levels of BPA.
BPA in urine was linked with lower-quality semen even in men who didn't work with the chemical, although their average BPA levels were much lower than in the other group. Li said the average level in this group was similar to that detected in U.S. men.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has been evaluating the chemical's safety but declined to say if it is considering following Canada's lead in declaring the chemical toxic.
In an e-mailed statement, the FDA said it is working with the National Institutes of Health and others "to advance scientific understanding of BPA and inform our decisions."

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Pinoy Tasty

Sounds interesting right?! Pinoy tasty suits Juan Dela Cruz's budget. I was in the supermarket yesterday looking for something to buy and was surprised when I saw loaves of affordable Pinoy tasty. The manufacturers are different but the prices are same P36.00. Isn't it good? That's why I didn't hestitate to buy and when I got home I immediately have it with liver spread.. Uhhmm, yummy!

Pinoy Tasty is a lot healthier than others because bakers use flour fortified with Iron and vitamin A. DTI has partnered with three local bakers Filipino-Chinese Bakeries Association, Inc., PhilBaking and Federation of Philippine Bakers Association.

Great job DTI! hope you'll do more.

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Tsunami in Indonesia killed more than 100 people

7.7 magnituted undersea quake triggered a tsunami on remote islands of western Indonesia, killing 113 people and some are still missing. The death toll from the quake late Monday, which struck 13 miles (20 kilometers) beneath the ocean floor, was expected to climb as reports on damage and injuries began trickling in Tuesday.

Mujiharto, who heads the Health Ministry's crisis center, said a 10-foot (three-meter) -high wave washed away hundreds of houses on Pagai and Silabu, part of the remote and sparsely populated Mentawai island chain. Mentawai Island is a popular destination for surfers particularly to Australians.

Let us pray for the victims of Tsunami

Monday, October 25, 2010

Making money online

Is it easy or difficult? I asked other people about their opinions and here's what I found out.. 70% of them said it's difficult 29% said it's easy and here's very interesting 1 out of 100 said that making money is fun and exciting. I got curious and made a research about it. I found out that it really easy, fun and exciting.

Here are few things that you can do.

Writing Articles
>> Articles are the main reasons why people go online. They need to research certain issues or trends.The need information, so if you think you have the ability in Article writing well this will work for you.

Online surveys
>> This is the simplest thing you can do to earn money. You will just register Online surveys then you can make money with every opinions you share.

Here are the list of paid survey sites in the Philippines:
Global test market
Survey savvy
All world panels

Blogging
>> Writing blogs is one way of expressing your ideas yet having extra incomes. You should only know how to monetize the blog itself. Google Adsense is probably the most well known method – you can join the program for free and display contextual ads that your visitors will be interested in to maximise your click through rate. There are several ways to set up a blog online. You could use WordPress, Blogger, or another free site that hosts your blog for you; or alternatively you can set up your own blog under your own domain name.

Have fun making money online.

Top 5 Dating mistakes

SOURCE:http://www.lifescript.com/Life/Relationships/Love-101/Top_5_Dating_Mistakes.aspx?utm_source=newsalert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2010-10-25

Why do guys who couldn’t live without us yesterday vanish into the woodwork today? LifeScript asked male dating experts about the things women do that drive guys nuts

This probably has happened to you: You meet a great guy, go out a few times, have great chemistry, everything’s clicking. And then – poof! He’s gone. No phone call. Not even a text message to say he’s just not that into you. And you’re thinking: Was it something I did? Something I said?

Guess what? Maybe it was something you did… or something you didn’t do. Maybe he’s trapped under something heavy and can’t reach his BlackBerry.

Guys usually keep this kind of info to themselves. But if you get them to open up a bit, they’ll start spilling like the Exxon Valdez about the things women do that irk them most.

For some guys, it’s little things: makeup that looks like it was applied with a trowel, a woman’s bizarre obsession with her pets, her habit of filing her nails at dinner. Many men grouse about “clinginess that rivals industrial-strength Velcro,” as one veteran of the New York dating scene said. Another griped about “constantly being asked what I’m thinking and where I’m going!”

Sometimes the sins are greater, like lying about one’s physical or financial health.

Genetically engineered foods may already be on your menus. Are they safe? Healthy?

In the not-too-distant future, your dinner plate may be filled with science experiments – salmon, meat and other foods that have been “engineered” by a technology firm. Sound yummy?

Salmon is the latest and most controversial food to come out of a test tube. The Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Veterinary Medicine Advisory Committee recently held hearings about AquAdvantage® Salmon, genetically engineered by the biotechnology company AquaBounty.

Consumer groups, including the Consumers Union, claim that more rigorous testing needs to be done to ensure that AquaBounty’s “super salmon” is safe for our health and the environment. The FDA agrees there’s not enough research available to determine safety.

So it’s unlikely you’ll see that particular product at the fish counter anytime soon. But unless you’re watchful, you’re probably eating other genetically engineered (GE) foods – in cake mixes, canned goods, cereals and more.

Should GE foods be on your plate? Are they potential health hazards? We asked scientists and nutrition experts to explain the issues behind this still-developing science.

What Is Genetic Engineering?The process involves inserting foreign genes into the DNA of a plant, animal, bacteria or other organism. Genetic engineering can alter crops or animals, turning them into what’s known as a genetically modified organism (GMO), which is what you might see on food labels.

GEs are also used to develop drugs and vaccines.

"Most of the insulin prescribed [for diabetes] in America is genetically engineered,” notes Tina Ruggiero, a New York-based dietitian and co-author of the forthcoming book The Best Homemade Baby Food on the Planet (Fair Winds Press). And, last year, the FDA approved an anti-clotting drug made from proteins extracted from the milk of genetically engineered goats.

GE food manufacturers claim they’ll save the world, promising higher yields to feed a hungry planet because crops can be engineered to resist disease, insects and herbicides. For example, Monsanto’s GE corn can withstand the herbicide Roundup.

Animals can also be genetically modified to resist disease, as well as to grow faster. AquaBounty’s salmon includes growth hormones of Chinook salmon (the largest in the species) and antifreeze genes from an ocean pout, an eel-like fish.

By inserting these genes into the DNA of an Atlantic salmon, the fish grows faster, year-round, and reaches market weight in half the time of natural salmon. The fish are also engineered to be all female and sterile, so if they escaped from tanks, they would, theoretically, be unable to contaminate the wild fish population.

How is that different from crossbreeding, which farmers have always done with plants and livestock? Traditional crossbreeding creates new varieties through natural sexual reproduction. Horticulturists can crossbreed tomato varieties to create a hybrid, for example. But they can’t cross a tomato with a rose.

But genetic engineering can – by allowing developers to “move genes across species boundaries to produce novel organisms ... that do not occur in nature and, indeed, cannot be developed by natural means,” according to the Union of Concerned Scientists’ (UCS) policy statement.

“Legally, the FDA views genetic engineering as an extension of conventional breeding,” says Michael Hansen, Ph.D., senior scientist at the Consumers Union. Therefore, the agency doesn’t require the safety assessments it does for GE plant foods; non-GE foods have no assessments.

But Hansen and other consumer advocates contend that GMOs are different from natural varieties and therefore require rigorous safety standards. For example, in nature you couldn’t cross a tomato with spinach, which is a cold-season crop, to grow tomatoes year-round. But genetic engineering makes this a possibility.

Are GE Foods Safe to Eat?The FDA says GE plants are safe because they’re not “materially” different from conventional plants.

“The FDA doesn’t require any safety studies whatsoever,” says Jeffrey Smith, of the anti-GMO consumer advocacy group Institute for Responsible Technology. “The policy was developed based on the assumption – since 1992 – that the agency is not aware of any information that GMOs are significantly different.”

But, unlike plants, the FDA classifies GE animals like a new drug – considered unsafe until proven otherwise. Last month’s hearings asked the advisory committee to evaluate AquaBounty’s AquAdvantage® Salmon on health and environmental safety, based on the company’s own research.

Hansen and other consumer advocates questioned that research.

“Many of the studies supporting this technology have sample sizes of [only] 5-7 fish,” says Chuck Benbrook, Ph.D., chief scientist at The Organic Center.

And none of AquaBounty’s studies reflected the actual conditions under which the fish would be commercially raised, Benbrook says.

Many experts are concerned that current genetic engineering is still in its infancy. Scientists can’t yet control where genes are inserted in DNA, and that can affect outcome, Hansen says.

Do GE Foods Have Health Risks?
Although the FDA deems GE foods safe, research has linked them with a large number of health issues, according to the American Academy of Environmental Medicine (AAEM), Union of Concerned Scientists and other groups. Among them: infertility, impaired immune function, accelerated aging, and disrupted insulin and cholesterol regulation. Other studies tie them to liver, kidney and gastrointestinal problems.

Mice fed GE corn are prone to infertility and birth defects, according to a 2008 study by Austria’s Federal Ministry of Health, Family and Youth. Another 2008 study, published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, revealed that mice fed a diet of GE corn were more likely to have impaired immune response than those who nibbled regular corn.

“Unfortunately, there’s no epidemiological data [on GE food fed to humans],” says Amy Dean, D.O., a member of the AAEM’s board of directors. “But what we’ve seen over the years is that patients are getting much sicker, and since GM foods have come on the market, chronic diseases are skyrocketing.”

Last year, AAEM members decided that the evidence against genetically modified foods was strong enough to issue a position paper, co-written by Dean, urging physicians to advise patients to avoid them.

We can create a greener movement with biotech and engineering if we do it responsibly, says Ruggiero, who owns a 360-acre farm in Alabama. “If it’s done with the public’s interest and benefit in mind, it can be very beneficial to human nutrition.”

For example, British researchers are working on a purple-hued tomato engineered with snapdragon genes to enhance its levels of the health-boosting antioxidant anthocyanin.

Which Foods Contain Genetically Modified Organisms?Eight GE crops are used in our food supply: corn, soy, canola, cotton, sugar beets, papaya, zucchini and crookneck squash. The main crops, soybeans and corn, are in hundreds of foods, from vegetable oils and high-fructose corn syrup to supplements and food additives.

And many GE crops are used in livestock feed. In addition, this summer the Supreme Court lifted a ban on herbicide-resistant GE alfalfa, which could also be used in livestock feed.

Dairy producers may inject cows with an engineered synthetic form of bovine growth hormone called rbST or rbGH, which boosts milk production by up to 15%. This hormone can cause problems in cows, such as lameness, and the European Union and Canada have banned it for animal welfare.

Although rbST has been found safe for humans, consumer opposition has led many American retailers – including Kroger, Publix and Trader Joe’s – to ban dairy products with rbST.

There aren’t any genetically engineered animals in our food supply – yet. If approved, the GE salmon would be the first on the market.

How Do I Know If My Food Has Been Genetically Engineered?“Most processed foods have some GM components in them,” Dean says. According to the nonprofit Non-GMO Project, about 80% of packaged foods contain GMOs.

And because most livestock feed is derived from GE crops, you’re indirectly ingesting GE foods when eating conventionally produced beef, pork or poultry.

A Center for Science in the Public Interest poll found that up to 70% of consumers want genetically engineered food to be labeled as such. But because the FDA decreed, in 1992, that GE foods are not “materially” different from other foods, therefore do not have to be labeled – they’re now abundant in our food supply.